A theatrical response to 1611

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s winter season contains an interesting combination of dramas. The majority of actors in their new production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure are also appearing in David Edgar’s new play, Written on the Heart.

Why did 1611 matter?

Written on the Heart makes vivid the tensions and undercurrents of those involved in producing a new version of the Bible – what we know today as the King James Version. For anyone studying Shakespeare or other drama of the era (and who at A Level does not?) it provides a dynamic context for the moral dilemmas of characters as diverse as Malvolio and Hamlet.

The playwright demonstrates why exactly which word selected to convey beliefs mattered so greatly – that the committee members really were dealing with matters of life and death, in an era where the ‘wrong’ beliefs were punished by the state.

Passionate protest lives on

• Think of the passion and commitment shown by those involved in the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 - people putting their lives on the line for what they believe in.
• The debate was just as meaningful 400 years ago in Britain, which had its own uprising just thirty years after the KJB was published.

In a telling contrast to modern Western ‘been there, done that’ ennui, people like William Tyndale went to the stake for daring to create a text that could be read by everyone, rather than just those in control. In the play he haunts the consciences of the translation committees four monarchs later. This stuff matters.

Belief in Measure for Measure

So why has the RSC chosen to stage Shakespeare’s ‘problem play’ alongside a debate about beliefs? In the video below, Measure for Measure's Director speaks about the overlap and how the knowledge gained by the cast for one production informs the other.

Measure for Measure is not a neat and tidy text to pigeonhole – dramas of ideas rarely are. With an ending open to interpretation, it presents the difference between espousing a doctrine and actually living by it, and the difficulties that creates. It asks what has the greater hold over people – sexual desire or moral beliefs.

Ways in to the text

Inevitably Shakespeare refers to the ethical debates of the day, with which he would have expected his audience to be familiar. However 21st century students do not necessarily inhabit the same moral universe. It helps therefore to have a guide to this complex play which clearly defines and explains the concepts and why they were important – Measure for Measure to the rescue!

As with the context of Written on the Heart, this stuff matters. Having the ‘wrong’ beliefs is punishable by the state. Though no longer the case in Britain, our news-screens show us what it is like to die for strongly held beliefs – and at the RSC drama set 400 years ago bring it vividly home.